Honoring the Life and Letters of Professor Emeritus Jenkins, 1926–2010

Colleagues and
friends gathered December 1, 2010, to honor David Clay Jenkins through the
sharing of memories, anecdotes, and readings of poetry. Professor Jenkins died
November 4 after a long illness brought on by a stroke.

Some forty friends, colleagues, and former students from
all over Virginia and beyond gathered in the Wren Great Hall to read some of
David’s favorite poems, ranging from Goronwy Owen to Dylan Thomas. Poets
Barbara Drucker Smith, David Essex, Henry Hart, Bob Maccubbin, and Michael Mott
generously shared their own work to celebrate David’s storied career at William
and Mary; and colleagues John Conlee, Bill Davis, Carl Dolmetsch, Bob
Maccubbin, Terry Meyers, and Jack Willis traded touching and often comic
anecdotes about David’s adventures and enthusiasms in and out of the classroom.

Audio: John Conlee reads excepts from "Cad Goddeau," from the Book of Taliesin

Professor Nancy Schoenberger organized the event, and Bob
Jeffrey, David’s friend and fellow devotee of Welsh poetry, served ably as
master of ceremonies.

A Life of Letters and Wide Interests

Professor
Jenkins joined the English Department at William & Mary in 1956 as an
instructor in modern poetry and advanced and critical writing. At the College,
he identified and conducted extensive research on an eighteenth-century member
of the College faculty, Goronwy Owen, a person of Welsh lineage who ran afoul
of the sectarian leaders of the College and eventually migrated to central
Virginia. Goronwy Owen became something of an iconic figure to Professor
Jenkins, and his interest led him to publish several articles on his hero's
life and times.

He was also a
scholar of Alexander Pope and Dylan Thomas and published research papers on
both. As a member of the faculty, Professor Jenkins established the William & Mary Review, a journal
dedicated to publishing and circulating undergraduate, faculty, and graduate
original writing. He retired from the College in 1992 as professor emeritus.

He was known
among a wide circle of friends for his eclectic interests in fields as diverse
as puppetry, printing, foreign languages, and participation in music groups,
where he was proficient on the recorder. He was a published author of fiction
in The New Yorker magazine and
articles of local interest in the Virginia
Gazette.

David Clay
Jenkins was born June 1, 1926, in Birmingham, Ala., to William Arthur Jenkins
Sr. and Virginia Anne (Bell) Jenkins.

After two
years at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, he joined the U.S. Army on Oct.
6, 1944. Between 1944 and 1946 he served with the 78th Infantry Division,
participating in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest in Belgium during September
1944 to February 1945 as a member of the 311th Infantry Regiment and crossing
the Rhine River on March 8, 1945. He was honorably discharged on May 22, 1946,
with the rank of staff sergeant.

He attended
and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1948 with a degree of bachelor
of arts. On receiving his undergraduate degree he was designated a Fulbright
Scholar and studied contemporary Anglo-Welsh writing at the University College
of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 1949 to 1951. In 1951 he was awarded his master of
arts degree in English from the University of Alabama. Thereafter, he attended
the University of Iowa where, in 1956, his Ph.D. degree in English was
conferred with a doctoral dissertation entitled "Writing in Twentieth
Century Wales: A Defense of the Anglo-Welsh."

He was
preceded in death by his parents; his brother, William Arthur Jenkins Jr.; and
sisters, Lillian Ann Jenkins Lee and Virginia Jenkins Skelton.

Bequest to the
English Department

A few weeks before the memorial reading, the English
Department faculty discovered that Professor Jenkins had left his entire estate
to the College of William and Mary. Half will go to Swem Library, which is the
proud recipient of his legendary book collection. The English Department will
receive the remaining half.

Professor Jenkins holds the distinction of having taught
William and Mary’s first creative writing classes. The department, fittingly,
plans to use his gift to support its creative writing program, to fund housing for the yearly Scott Donaldson writer-in-residence and enhance the
literary awards bestowed each spring on the best aspiring student writers.